On a mission to find a lost phone, flight attendants save a life

Sometimes, heroism comes from being at the right place at the right time.

For two El Al Airlines flight attendants, Israelis Nitzan Rabinowitz and Mor Levi, that right place was their own place of work, and the right time was 15 minutes after their flight was supposed to leave.

According to Facebook accounts, Rabinowitz noticed that her phone was missing a few minutes before departure, so she and Levi decided to retrace their steps to find it. As they headed toward the train station at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, they saw an elderly Asian man laying on the floor as his daughter began screaming for help.

“I had no doubt in my mind that we would stay here and try to save his life," Rabinowitz said. So the two administered CPR to the man for about 30 minutes until parademics arrived. The man was breathing on his own when they left the scene and returned to their flight – without the missing phone.

El Al is Israel's most popular airline and operates out of Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. (Photo: Rebius/Shutterstock)

The bad news: They didn't get the man's name, so they have no idea how he's doing now. The good news: Rabinowitz's phone was later found and given to the airport's lost and found.

And though the flight was delayed a few minutes, passengers were unaware of the reason why – and that's just fine with Rabinowitz and Levi, who didn't want any accolades or special attention for their act.

“We felt that we did what was expected of us,” they said.

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Jaime Bender
is a staff writer, copy editor and web producer at From the Grapevine who also manages Israeli Kitchen, From The Grapevine’s food channel.